North American Pro Soccer 2017

[Gothamite]

29 minutes ago, dfwabel said:

Remember that FS Investors only wants 79.9 acres

 

I see your unsupported opinion piece and raise. 

[dfwabel]

I stand corrected, but the as I stated in page prior, even that Acee piece noted the lease terms may/may not be available for the public to read before Election Day. 

[Gothamite]

And if that's the case, then the proposal deserves to go down in flames.

[Corvus]

On 5/12/2017 at 10:10 PM, mr.negative15 said:

Care to expand on that thought?

 

I'm not even necessarily arguing I'm just curious as to why you say this

 

The MLS teams in Canada are doing OK, but with a league that is going to focus on mostly Canadian rosters, the talent and entertainment level isn't going to be that high, frankly. Plus, MLS has captured the top three markets in the country, so that removes a lot of potential money (and owners) and fans. Attendance for the lower league teams currently in Canada in USL, NASL isn't great either.  

 

Yes, we have a zillion channels between Sportsnet and TSN, but I can't seem them putting money into covering the league. Hell, most of the time the same crap is on all the channels at the same time!

 

We had a Canadian pro league before and it flamed out after five years. I hope this one does well and helps produce more pro players for Canada, but I'll reserve judgement until they have more than 2 teams announced and have impressive deep pocketed owners. It will also be very interesting if they'll be able to balance developing Canadian talent with the $$$ potential of bringing in foreign players. 

[Gothamite]

The Cosmos fans I know are pretty pissed off right now, as their mighty club got bounced out of the US Open Cup by an amateur team, and they're now off to the Middle East to play a friendly in Riyadh (that they rescheduled an NASL game for).  

 

 

This has fueled speculation that Sela Sports still has an ownership stake in the club, not to mention the bad feelings that winning over NYC isn't really their priority.  

[FiddySicks]

I just got a pretty good look at Phoenix Rising's new park. Wow, that's pretty impressive. 

 

That reminds me quite a bit of Papa Murphy's Park (Bonney Field) in Sacramento, but with more bells and whistles. And that location on McClintock off the Loop 202 next to Tempe Marketplace is AWESOME. Totally underused area that needed something like this. I'm kinda bummed they didn't have the team when I was there. 

 

Here's a story on it with a video showing the park a bit more. Not sure why all the headlines say it's in Scottsdale, though. That's most definitely Tempe. 

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2017/05/24/mls-expansion-sacramento-republic/

[dfwabel]

As for FC Cincinnati....

http://www.wcpo.com/sports/fc-cincinnati/fc-cincinnati-could-be-asking-for-up-to-250-million-in-public-aid-to-join-mls

 

Quote

FC Cincinnati says it doesn’t want a tax increase, but it is asking local governments for millions in public aid to build a soccer-specific stadium so it can win one of the four Major League Soccer expansion franchises up for grabs.

 

FC Cincinnati President Jeff Berding went public with his club‘s pitch at a Thursday news conference, calling for “a little help” in creating a public-private partnership and saying that his club can’t win an MLS franchise in the competition with 11 other cities without its own soccer stadium.

 

Berding said FC Cincinnati is committed to spending $250 million of its own money -- $150 million for MLS franchise fees and $100 million toward the stadium. Berding wouldn’t say how much public money the club wants, but he did say FC Cincinnati’s contribution would cover more than half of what’s needed to build a stadium. So it figures it could be asking for less than $100 million in public aid.

 

Berding and team ownership led by Carl Lindner III know what they’re up against by asking for public money in a town that has buyer’s remorse from using hundreds of millions of sales tax dollars to finance the Bengals and Reds stadiums. The mayor and county commissioners have already gone on record against any tax hike. A group called No More Stadium Taxes vowed this week to fight any taxes for a soccer stadium or new Downtown arena, since the owners of US Bank Arena have their hands out, too.

 

[Gothamite]

Well, that's very disappointing. 

[dfwabel]

9 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

Well, that's very disappointing. 

As for the desired sites....

 

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/2017/05/24/heres-where-fc-cincinnati-looking-build-new-stadium/343095001/

 

Quote

The upstart franchise, hoping to make the jump to Major League Soccer in the next few years, is looking to build a $200 million stadium possibly on one of these sites: 

• West End: Taft high school's football stadium – and some land around it – near Central Parkway, just west of Music Hall and Washington Park.

• Oakley: Land around Oakley Station off Interstate 71 and Ridge Road, including the former Cincinnati Milacron plant site.

• Newport: The site long planned for the Ovation mixed-use development near the confluence of the Ohio and Licking rivers, land that offers a clear view of the Downtown Cincinnati skyline.

 

Both Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune and Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley have said they do not see taxpayer money going toward a new soccer stadium.

 

[MJWalker45]

7 hours ago, Bucfan56 said:

I just got a pretty good look at Phoenix Rising's new park. Wow, that's pretty impressive. 

 

That reminds me quite a bit of Papa Murphy's Park (Bonney Field) in Sacramento, but with more bells and whistles. And that location on McClintock off the Loop 202 next to Tempe Marketplace is AWESOME. Totally underused area that needed something like this. I'm kinda bummed they didn't have the team when I was there. 

 

Here's a story on it with a video showing the park a bit more. Not sure why all the headlines say it's in Scottsdale, though. That's most definitely Tempe. 

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2017/05/24/mls-expansion-sacramento-republic/

Isn't it right on the border between Tempe and Scottsdale? I remember seeing the Marketplace sign when I would travel through. I think some of their acreage may split both areas.

[dfwabel]

13 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

Isn't it right on the border between Tempe and Scottsdale? I remember seeing the Marketplace sign when I would travel through. I think some of their acreage may split both areas.

The stadium sits on tribal land, so the Salt River Pima Maricopa tribe just uses the most desirable ZIP.

 

Oh, and earlier in May, the Salt River Pima's land asset company, the Solanna Group and Phoenix Rising did partner for the stadium with the Devil....Goldman Sachs.

 

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/phoenix-rising-football-club-retains-goldman-sachs-as-structuring-agent-for-mls-soccer-stadium-300451139.html

[FiddySicks]

Scottsdale starts on the other side of the Loop 202. Unless that corner by Tempe Marketplace has some really weird things going on (which actually could be the case, that area is a little weird with Tempe Town Lake and the Salt River), that's Tempe. I remember ASU having some issues with that due to the city change backing right up to campus. 

[HedleyLamarr]

what up @Gothamite

[Gothamite]

1 hour ago, HedleyLamarr said:

what up @Gothamite

 

Not much.  You?

[4_tattoos]

Some people on the MLS Facebook page got real pissy about the start of the Atlanta/NYC game being moved to ESPN News due to a college softball game running long. Forgive me for being a realist, but doesn't the NCAA (as a whole) have way more pull than MLS? I'm not surprised (or upset) about the situation. Yet, some people treat it as if the heads of ESPN and the NCAA came together and took a dump on the steps of MLS headquarters smh. Seriously man, some of this league's fans are way too much.

[BlackBolt3]

I don't really think it's about pull, ESPN normally just carries out the live coverage the started with first. If the network schedules two live events back to back, there is not a whole lot they can do except have a built in buffer zone of a few minutes, essentially delaying the start time by a few minutes (up to 15 minutes at the most). You can't watch a whole day's worth of college football without noticing it.

[Red Wolf]

I don't pay much attention to Facebook comments sections because they tend to be full of whiny babies. Like Bolt mentioned, watching college football has conditioned me to understand that that is just what is going to happen. I'm sure if I went onto Facebook during that time there would be people whining about a game being pushed to ESPNNews for the start for literally every sport or conference. People like to whine. 

[TheRicSlick]

Boo, Chivas won.

[BlackBolt3]

I mean today's game still got kicked off about 15 minutes later anyway, plus the game lasted past its allotted time so I'm sure there were some angry MLB fans getting wild on Facebook too.

[Gothamite]

On 5/19/2017 at 7:25 PM, Gothamite said:

The Cosmos fans I know are pretty pissed off right now, as their mighty club got bounced out of the US Open Cup by an amateur team, and they're now off to the Middle East to play a friendly in Riyadh (that they rescheduled an NASL game for).  

 

 

This has fueled speculation that Sela Sports still has an ownership stake in the club, not to mention the bad feelings that winning over NYC isn't really their priority.  

 

Those sentiments led to another storm brewing - there's a popular and long-standing fan website/podcast called "Cosmos Country" dedicated to covering and promoting the Cosmos, and they had those same criticisms. That criticism had the Cosmos' very thin-skinned new owner call from Riyadh at 3 in the morning local time, Trump-style, to have one of his employees call the podcast hosts and lean on them.    

 

http://www.empireofsoccer.com/cosmos-country-drops-coverage-of-team-61362/

 

Now, after years of promoting the club, they're walking away from their site.  Real black eye for the man who many thought was going to be the NASL's savior.